Ultima VIII \ VOGONS

Ultima VIII

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First post, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-12, 23:50

Daravos Offline

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Hello all. Recently, I've been wanting to play Ultima VIII: Pagan again, and I'm a little stumped as to how to get it working in DOSBox 0.74.

I'm using the Ultima Collection CD to install the game, and the install runs fine, as well as configuring the sound settings via the U8 Install program.

For SFX and music, I am setting them to SBPro at address 220, IRQ 7, DMA 1. (Have also tried with No Sound)

When I try to run Ultima 8, however, the game tends to just hang at the DOS prompt and does not start.

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DOSBox Settings

CPU Settings:
Core: Dynamic (Also tried Auto)
Cycles: 12000 (Also tried at 30000)
Type: Auto (Also tried 486_Slow, Pentium_Slow)

Memory:
16 MB (Also tried @ 32 MB)
XMS = True
EMS = True (Also tried set at False)
UMB = True (Also tried set at False)
Loadfix = True, 64kb (Also tried set at False)

Graphics:
Render: Surface (Also tried ddraw)
Video Card: svga_s3 (Also tried vgaonly and vesa_noflb)
Scaler: None

------

My System Specs:

Processor:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory:
2942MB RAM
Hard Drive:
350 GB
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (Onboard)
Operating System:
Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080917-1612)

-----

I'd appreciate any suggestions in trying to get this to work properly... Little frustrated after trying to get this working over the last three days.

Thanks,

Dar

Reply 1 of 14, by bloodbat

Posted on 2011-01-13, 04:02

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Loadfix isn't a part of the .conf file as far as I know and Ultima 8 doesn't need it anyway, at least in my case. I have it working properly.
There is a Ultima 8 patch, maybe you could try patching it, see if it works then.
Also...does it require the CD to be present while running? There was, I recall, a CD version bundled with some soundcards that did requiere the CD there...If it does...is the CD mounted?

Tried leaving cycles at auto??

Reply 2 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-13, 04:19

Daravos Offline

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bloodbat wrote:
Loadfix isn't a part of the .conf file as far as I know and Ultima 8 doesn't need it anyway, at least in my case. I have it work […]
Show full quote
Loadfix isn't a part of the .conf file as far as I know and Ultima 8 doesn't need it anyway, at least in my case. I have it working properly.
There is a Ultima 8 patch, maybe you could try patching it, see if it works then.
Also...does it require the CD to be present while running? There was, I recall, a CD version bundled with some soundcards that did requiere the CD there...If it does...is the CD mounted?

Tried leaving cycles at auto??

Yeah, I tried leaving the cycles at auto as well...

As this is the Ultima Collection version, as far as I've been able to find out, it is already patched to the latest version. CD is not required.

Reply 3 of 14, by dosquest

Posted on 2011-01-13, 05:49

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Did you buy it or was it "abandonware"?

Reply 4 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-13, 05:51

Daravos Offline

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dosquest wrote:
Did you buy it or was it "abandonware"?

Legally purchased.

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Last edited by Daravos on 2011-01-13, 05:57. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 14, by Mystery

Posted on 2011-01-13, 05:51

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Ultima VIII won't start if you have too much memory, at least on a real PC, I don't know if this applies to DOSBox as well.
Try to reduce the memory to 8MB or less and see if it works.

::42::

Reply 6 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-13, 06:01

Daravos Offline

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Mystery wrote:
Ultima VIII won't start if you have too much memory, at least on a real PC, I don't know if this applies to DOSBox as well.
Try to reduce the memory to 8MB or less and see if it works.

Just tried that at 8MB, 6MB and 4MB, with no success.

Reply 7 of 14, by Great Hierophant

Posted on 2011-01-13, 06:48

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Make sure all files in all U8 directories are not write protected.

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Reply 8 of 14, by keropi

Posted on 2011-01-13, 07:28

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Mystery wrote:
Ultima VIII won't start if you have too much memory, at least on a real PC, I don't know if this applies to DOSBox as well.
Try to reduce the memory to 8MB or less and see if it works.

it runs fine on my pentium 200mmx with 64MB ram

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Reply 9 of 14, by Dominus

Posted on 2011-01-13, 07:38

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Ultima 8 does normally work out of the box.
I think Great Hierophant has the right idea. Either make sure all the files are not write protected and are all present, or nuke your installation and copy the whole ultima8 folder off the CD (again making sure the files do not end up write protected). No need to use the Ultima Collection installer.

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
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Reply 10 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-13, 07:40

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Great Hierophant wrote:
Make sure all files in all U8 directories are not write protected.

Files are not write protected.

Been trying in both straight DOSBox and with D-Fend Reloaded 1.03, and it continues to hang after telling it to run u8.exe.

-------

The overall pisser about this is that I had managed to get it working fine (With DOSBox) on a 1.6Ghz system (Which was running Windows XP) a few years back... Sadly, I no longer have access to that computer.

I'm almost ready to try and find either a 486, or a Pentium 1 (75 MHZ or 100MHZ) system, probably the latter.

Still going to keep trying to get this sucker running though.

*goes back to testing settings*

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Dominus wrote:
Ultima 8 does normally work out of the box.
I think Great Hierophant has the right idea. Either make sure all the files are not write protected and are all present, or nuke your installation and copy the whole ultima8 folder off the CD (again making sure the files do not end up write protected). No need to use the Ultima Collection installer.

Thanks, Dominus. I'll take a crack at that and see if that works.

Reply 11 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-13, 07:44

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Well, frack me...

Yeah, that worked, Dominus. *laughing*

Thanks for the help, everyone.

Reply 12 of 14, by TeaRex

Posted on 2011-01-15, 02:41

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IIRC, some of the Ultima installers used relatively uncommon commands in their batch files, such as JOIN and SUBST. Maybe the Ultima Collection installer suffers from this too.

DOSBox doesn't emulate all of the commands a fully installed real DOS accepts at the COMMAND.COM prompt or in a batch (.BAT) file, and doesn't emulate all obscure features of those commands it does support; DOSBox is more about emulating the machine language API of DOS and the hardware of a typical DOS computer than its command line and batch file interface. Thus some complex batch files will fail on it, and a few games used such files in their installers. Luckily most of the more complex game installers are .EXE files, not .BAT (writing complicated .BAT files is an exercise in masochism), and those tend to work fine.

tearex

Reply 13 of 14, by Dominus

Posted on 2011-01-15, 05:29

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All worthless here. The uc installer is a windows installer

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 14 of 14, by Daravos

Posted on 2011-01-16, 23:25

Daravos Offline

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Dominus wrote:
All worthless here. The uc installer is a windows installer

There's actually both a Windows and MS-DOS installer.

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Ultima VIII

Topic actions

First post, by Daravos

Reply 1 of 14, by bloodbat

Reply 2 of 14, by Daravos

Reply 3 of 14, by dosquest

Reply 4 of 14, by Daravos

Attachments

Reply 5 of 14, by Mystery

Reply 6 of 14, by Daravos

Reply 7 of 14, by Great Hierophant

Reply 8 of 14, by keropi

Reply 9 of 14, by Dominus

Reply 10 of 14, by Daravos

Reply 11 of 14, by Daravos

Reply 12 of 14, by TeaRex

Reply 13 of 14, by Dominus

Reply 14 of 14, by Daravos